Tanner The Beekeeper

During my first year living in Iowa, I saw an advertisement in a campus newsletter: A beekeeper was looking to hire someone. After optimizing my resume, I emailed it to the person who would become my boss. During the Fall of 2018, I toted around in a old, rusted white truck with Adam Ebert. Mr. Ebert grew up around bees, and he reminded me of a much more mellow version of Back to the Future’s Doc Brown. As a matter of fact, Ebert had left his job as a professor at Mount Mercy University to pursue a full-time career overseeing the caretaking of bees and the production of honey. While working with Ebert, I administered antibiotics and observed the status of some of Ebert’s 1,200 hives in Eastern Iowa. I got stung, quite a few times, but I also learned a lot in an area I was not close to familiar with. This experience broadened my horizons and introduced me to the amazing mentor the PhD-wielding Adam Ebert is.